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In his memoir, composer Allen Shawn lists his phobias: “I don’t
like heights. I
don’t like being on the water. I am upset by walking across parking
lots or open parks or fields where there are no buildings. I tend to
avoid bridges, unless they are on a small scale. I respond poorly to
stretches of vastness but do equally badly when I am closed in, as
I am severely claustrophobic. When I go to a theater, I sit on the
aisle. I am petrified of tunnels, making most train travel as well
as many drives difficult. I don’t take subways. I avoid elevators
as much as possible. I experience glassed-in spaces as toxic, and I
find it very difficult to adjust to being in buildings in which the
windows don’t open.”
He adds: “I am afraid both of closed
and of open spaces, and I am afraid, in a sense, of any form of isolation.”
Like many people who suffer from phobias, Allen Shawn experiences
how his phobias have been restricting his life, insamuch as he has
had to live
his “life
around the experiences in which I felt calm.”
Is there hope? Allen Shawn writes: “In a way, I
had been raised to feel that the world was a kind of Pandora’s
box that was simply too frightening to ever fully open. As an adult
I found a way to open it a bit, while sitting on top of it too.”
Wish I Could Be There: Notes From a Phobic Life, by Allen Shawn
See:
- overcoming anxiety
- proactive psychotherapy
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